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Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Does how you perform really just matter to you?

I was reading an article about Florida's big win over Ohio State for the National Championship and, being an old football player, I expected to get alot of information on offensive and defensive schemes.I wanted to know how they figured out a way to beat a team that no one else could.What I got out of the article was something completely different.............Okay, hang with me for just a minute.Have you ever interviewed with a company, or gone to work for a company, and you hear buzz words like "we are family here". or "we all stick together here". You hear people say things like "we back each other up", or "we never let each other down".What's interesting is that there are usually groups within large organizations where that is true but rarely is that true throughout the organization.Okay, so let's turn that around a bit.What if, as a leader of an organization, you demanded that loyalty?Here is what a brand new coach of a marquee division one football prgram did.He brought the players and coaches families in as part of the organization.He made Thursday practices family night and the families of the players and coaches were invited to not only practice, but to the team dinners. He instilled in his players and coaches that whatever actions they took on and off the field not only affected them, but also affected the others on the team, inculding their families!That's a pretty strong value to try and instill in an entire organization but if you stop and think about it, it's not too far from the truth in all organizations.Let me give you a simple example.Let's say you work for a company that pays out quarterly bonuses and a portion of those bonuses are based on company performance. Now there are a lot of employees sitting around wondering how the company is qoing to do every quarter because it affects their bonuses.

But really, who affects company performance?I say, employees do.

So, if the employees perform at a high level, the company performs at a high level, and the company performance portion of your bonus is higher, and everyone is happy.But, when you as an individual do not perform at a high level, who did you really affect, besides yourself..................You affected all of your co-workers, and their families. I'm not saying that you should be coming to work everyday to perform for someone elses benefit.If you have been paying attention though, I believe I have just given you a long drawn out definition of "Teamwork".Everyone in your organization should be working together for a common goal and if someone is not, get them onboard.